Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bring Out Your Doilies - A New Birds Nest Tutorial

whilst working with my little coconut fibre pot on Tuesday and waiting for the tea stained eggs to dry I thought it would be nice to come up with a new little tutorial for you!

After my Easter basket which was made from a stiffened doily my thoughts went with a nest made the same way.

And this it what you will need:

- An old doily

- Wooden egg/eggs

- Fabric stiffener

- Teabags and hot water

- A bowl for tea staining/a bowl for stiffening the doily

- A small tin to mold your nest with

- Book pages

- Plastic wrap

- Scissors ( I used decorative scissors but you can use plain if you wish)

- Aluminium foil

- a piece of cake or pie ( not a necessity just yummy)

Boil your water and throw 3 tea bags into your bowl and add your eggs (wooden eggs that is my fellow bloggers - I don't want anyone accidentally cracking a couple of real eggs in there! No baking today) and doily. The doily won't take as long as the eggs. Once you have the right color for your doily, take it out and let it dry. Your eggs will take about 2 hours in the mixture. Yet again once you like the look, take the eggs out and let them dry over night. Note, the shade of color will dry lighter than when wet.

When your doily is dry the next step is to get your things to stiffen your doily.

Place a piece of foil down and cover your tart tin with plastic wrap. Both of these items will help your doily from getting stuck whilst drying.

Place your doily into the bowl and pore some fabric stiffener onto it. You are best not to use too much at first, you don't want it dripping with the stiffener and you can always add more if needed.

Work the stiffener into the doily. Once the doily is saturated, wring it out a bit so you don't have too much excess liquid otherwise it will dry as a plastic like texture which you don't really want.

Place your doily over the tart tin stretch it out.

You don't want it too neat, because you are trying it make it look a bit natural. This is yet again the time when the yummy stuff comes into thought. (I have a thing for oatmeal muffins when I sit and wait.) Now you have to let your doily dry. I tend to leave mine over night to do so.

The following day ...

Your doily should be dry now. Peel it carefully

from the tart tin.

Now is the time you can decorate your nest. I decided to go with Scrabble pieces and use the word 'nest' which I glued to the rim of the nest. Use a good glue that has instant stick so the pieces stay put right away if you want to do the same.

You can make the the 'stuffing' for the nest. Cut thin strips of book pages either with plain or decorative scissors, which ever you prefer. Use about 1 - 2 pages not more. If you don't like book pages why not try music sheets?

Scrunch the strips up and place into the nest and the last thing to do now is to place your eggs into the nest.

Finished!!

With this creation I think less is more but you can decorate as much or as little as you wish.

Fantastic idea ... I want to make a nest for my straw hat, instead of using a bow, and place a felted egg that I just purchased in it. I am attending a 'Spring Tea' and they are having a 'spring hat' contest. I am sure it will be eye catching. Already am following your Blog on mine. Thanks so much for sharing with much Peace and Blessings, Barb

Now Closed ...

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About Me

My name is Karen Bailey, and my passion aside from my family is finding old things and crafting. I love walking through antique stores and other interesting places to search for new treasures that I can use for my crafts or for my home.

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